By Laila Bassam and Lisa Barrington ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian army pressed an offensive in Aleppo on Friday with ground fighting and air strikes in an operation to retake all of the city's besieged rebel-held east that would bring victory in the civil war closer for President Bashar al-Assad. "The advance is going according to plan and is sometimes faster than expected," a Syrian military source told Reuters, adding that the Syrian army and its allies had recaptured 32 of east Aleppo's 40 neighborhoods, about 85 percent of the area. There were no reports the Syrian army had made significant gains.

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AP) — Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Friday that the United States will stick with Afghanistan for years to come as a new U.S. president takes over what is already America's longest war.

LONDON (AP) — A new report into systematic Russian doping details a wide-ranging "institutional conspiracy" that involved more than 1,000 athletes across more than 30 sports, including evidence corroborating large-scale sample swapping at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.